The Magic School Bus--Senior Year
by ApplauseJunkie
Summary: It's senior year at Walkerville High school, and the gang's all back together! Not only that, but Ms. Frizzle has some brand-new field trips up her sleeve! PM or comment if you have anything you'd like the teens to learn about. I'm totally down for suggestions.
1. Introduction

Seven forty-five am, and the halls of Walkerville High School were alive with activity. It was the first day of senior year for Arnold Perlstein, who hauled his backpack into his new classroom and sat down in the back row. He hated the first day of school. It was terrifying. There was no telling who his new classmates would be, and it took almost all year for him to readjust to the new group of people. Besides, this year was even more stressful than usual because the teacher that was supposed to have this classroom had resigned at the last minute. Arnold had no idea who the new teacher would be.

The door swung open, and Arnold tensed. But it wasn't the new teacher. It was Phoebe Terese, a shy brunette that he had had in class once before, back in elementary school. She saw him and smiled. "Arnold?"

Arnold nodded in affirmation and waved awkwardly. "Hi, Phoebe."

Phoebe sat down next to him. "I'm glad you're here," she commented. "I hate not knowing anybody on the first day of school."

"I definitely know how that is," Arnold agreed, pushing his glasses up along his nose. "By the way, do you know who our new teacher is supposed to be?"

Before Phoebe could answer, the classroom door opened again and they both looked up. But it wasn't the new teacher. It was Dorothy Ann, sporting her signature pink bookbag. "Hi guys," she said, dropping her books onto a seat in the front row before going to greet Phoebe and Arnold. "I feel like I haven't talked to either of you in forever!"

Two more boys joined the class, a skater in a blue hoodie and his buddy in a red baseball cap turned backwards. D. A. turned around and rushed for them. "Carlos! Ralphie!"

Carlos Ramon gave the blonde a cheeky grin and grabbed her for a hug. She hugged him back, then turned to Ralphie, but he held his hands up and took a step back. "You know I'm not a hugger," he reminded her. Dorothy Ann giggled and gave him his space.

"Hey guys!" called Tim Jamal from the door.

"Is it just me," Ralphie asked, "Or is this literally our whole class all over again?"

Carlos high-fived his old friend. "It's a regular elementary school reunion in here!"

"You can say that again," commented Keisha Franklin, as she and Wanda Li closed the door behind them.

"This is going to be one interesting senior year," said Wanda as she hugged Phoebe hello.

"And there were only eight people on the roster, which means this is all of us," Dorothy Ann said. "It's going to be just like it was in Ms. Frizzle's class."

"Hopefully with normal field trips," Arnold wished quietly.

"Does anybody know who our teacher is supposed to be?" Wanda asked. "The one on the schedule isn't coming back."

"Wait a minute," said Ralphie. "What are the odds of all of us being put in the same senior class?"

D.A. clicked a few buttons on a calculator, then responded, "According to my research, the odds are more than ten thousand to one that we would all be in the same class again."

"Oh, no," Arnold said. "Does that mean what I think it means?"

Before anyone could answer, the empty teacher's desk began to rattle. All of the teenagers looked over at it, watching the desk curiously. It started to shake, then to rock, then suddenly, the middle drawer burst open. A huge ball of light emerged, and when it dimmed, standing on the desk was middle-aged redheaded woman with a hooked nose and a huge grin.

"Good morning class!" she greeted them.

"I knew it," said Tim. "We've been Frizzled again!"


	2. The Magic School Bus Takes a Smoke Break

**The Magic School Bus Takes a Smoke Break**

The day had just begun, and Carlos strolled into class, last as usual. He took his seat next to Dorothy Ann, who crinkled her nose.

"Ew, Carlos, you smell like cigarettes."

Unfazed, the skater mocked her face of disgust. "Probably because I just smoked one."

"Before school? Gross!" Phoebe held her nose. "Don't you know how bad smoking is for you, Carlos?"

He rolled his eyes. "Of course I do. You think I haven't heard it since I started smoking? Since before I started smoking!"

"Then why do you keep doing it?" D.A. asked.

Carlos shrugged. "The nicotine is addictive. Once you start, it's crazy hard to quit. Besides, I like the buzz they give me."

"You get a buzz from cigarettes?" asked Tim. Pretty much the whole class was listening now, watching Carlos with curiosity.

He looked around in confusion. "Oh come on! Nobody else in here smokes?"

Almost everybody looked back at him blankly. Ralphie shrugged. "I mean, once or twice."

"Smoking is extremely unhealthy. Why would you do that to your lungs?" Phoebe wailed.

Carlos threw his hands up in self-defense. "I told you! It's just hard to quit!"

At that moment, Ms. Frizzle swept out of her closet, a bright green lizard perched on her shoulder. "Good morning, class!" she yodeled. Coming over to Carlos, she took a long sniff in his direction. "Hmm, Carlos, you seem to have a certain bouquet about you this morning!"

"It's hardly a bouquet, Ms. Frizzle. He smells like cigarettes, and cigarettes stink!"

"Thanks a lot, Dorothy Ann."

Ms. Frizzle chuckled. "Well, whatever you think of the smell, it's still a bouquet. Although in this case it's a bouquet of leaves, not flowers."

Phoebe frowned. "Huh?"

"Simple, Pheebs," Ralphie piped up. "Cigarettes are made from tobacco, which is a plant."

"Yeah," added Wanda, "The part of the cigarette you smoke is made of dried tobacco leaves."

"How can leaves be that bad for you?" Arnold wondered aloud.

Ms. Frizzle grinned, and the embroidered wisps of smoke that decorated the hem of her skirt seemed to swirl. "Now there's a burning question," she said, with a familiar twinkle in her eye.

Realizing what he had done, Arnold tried to backpedal. "No wait, I don't really want to know, I—"

"Knowledge is the key to everything, Arnold! To the bus! Two by two please!"

Seven of the eight teenagers hurried eagerly out of the classroom and into the familiar yellow bus, with Arnold straggling behind. It seemed as though the bus hadn't aged a day since the last time they had all filed into it, two by two.

Ms. Frizzle boarded last, and Liz hopped off of her shoulder and into the driver's seat. "Carlos, do you have your smokes with you?" their teacher asked.

Carlos patted his pocket. "Sure do, Ms. Frizzle!"

"Why don't you step outside and light up?"

Dorothy Ann stiffened indignantly. "Ms. Frizzle! Are you encouraging him to smoke during school?"

She grinned. "Unless someone else would like to smoke for science?"

Half of the class looked offended and half of the class giggled. Carlos hopped out of the bus and pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Liz scampered out of the driver's seat and up onto Carlos's shoulder.

"Here you go, Carlos," Ms. Frizzle handed him a small device that looked like an iPhone. "This will allow you to see what we're seeing. And you can plug your headphones in to hear what we're saying."

Carlos took the gadget and plugged in his headphones, which stayed permanently around his neck. "Thanks, Ms. Frizzle!"

"Buckle up, class! It's time for a smoke break!" The bus doors squeaked shut, and with a whirl of the shrinkerscope, they vanished, leaving Carlos and Liz alone in the parking lot.

As Carlos stuck the cigarette in his mouth, a tiny helicopter circled his head. Liz pulled out a lighter, and as he took a long drag, the bus flew toward the glowing coal at the tip of the cigarette.

Inside the bus, Arnold gasped when he saw where they were headed. "Ms. Frizzle! You're flying us right into the burning part!"

"That's called the cherry, Arn," Ralphie informed him.

Ms. Frizzle laughed her approval. "That's right, Ralphie! And it's where the fun begins. Burning the leaves releases nicotine, which is the chemical in cigarettes that most strongly affects the human body."

As she spoke, she steered the tiny bus straight into the red-hot center of the cherry, just as Carlos took another long drag. Arnold squeezed his eyes shut, while the rest of the class looked on in terror. "Woooah!"

There was a bright light, a moment of heat, and then they were getting swept down Carlos's throat, along with a thick cloud of tobacco smoke. The class coughed.

"Oh bad, oh bad!" Keesha complained.

Dorothy Ann held her nose. "Ugh, and I thought it stank just sitting next to him!"

Ralphie, on the other hand, took a long breath in through the nose, held it for a second, and let it out. "Oh man, it's been a while since I got a whiff of that!"

"Ms. Frizzle, do you have gas masks or something we could use?" Phoebe asked, with both hands over her nose and mouth in a vain attempt to filter out the smoke.

Their teacher shrugged. "If you would rather not experience the thrill of nicotine for yourself, you may put one of these on!" She pressed a button, and oxygen masks fell from the ceiling. Almost everyone put theirs on in haste, but Ralphie and Wanda left theirs off.

Tim was staring out the window at the dark brown tissue around them. "Is this is windpipe?" he asked.

"It is indeed, Tim."

"All that brown stuff must be cigarette gunk."

"Tar, to be exact, Pheobe," Ms. Frizzle. "It's another result of the smoke."

"It also looks like the throat itself has been burned," said Wanda.

"Excellent observation, Wanda. The heat from the smoke is so intense, it actually burns the tissue of his throat and lungs."

The bus shrank smaller and smaller as they wove through the tight passages of the lungs.

"Gee, Carlos's lungs aren't nearly the same color yours were, Ms. Frizzle," Phoebe observed.

"What's all that brownish goop out there?"

"Mucus, Arnold!" Ms. Frizzle replied. "It's the body's first line of defense against foreign materials entering the lungs. Mucus lines the surface of the alveoli and catches the debris before it enters the bloodstream."

"Does the mucus in your nose do the same thing?"

"Dynamically deduced, Keesha!"

Wanda was still looking out the window. "The mucus isn't stopping all of the smoke, though. A lot of the nicotine is still getting into the bloodstream!"

"Follow that drug!" Ms. Frizzle announced, pulling a lever next to the steering wheel. The bus spun on the spot and transformed into a miniature submarine, which dove into Carlos's blood vessel.

"I haven't been in somebody's bloodstream in years," Tim commented.

"His blood is moving awfully fast," said Dorothy Ann.

"Excellent observation, D.A. Nicotine stimulates your body to produce adrenaline, which accelerates your heart rate."

"Which delivers even more nicotine through your blood to your brain every minute!" Phoebe cried.

"That's right, Phoebe!"

The bus shot through Carlos's veins with each surge of his heartbeat, and in no time at all, Ms. Frizzle pulled the bus out of the bloodstream and into the brain. She threw the bus in park and with a flick of a switch, provided each passenger with a specially-designed scuba suit for exploring the human body.

"Everyone out! It's time to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!"

"In Carlos's brain?" Arnold asked, reluctantly donning his scuba gear.

"I've always wanted to know what was going on his head!" Dorothy Ann joked.

Outside, Carlos took another long breath of his cigarette, and let it out slowly. "I tell ya Liz, Ms. Frizzle is even cooler now that we're grown up. Although I guess I never realized my own lungs were that gross." He closed his eyes and leaned against the brick wall of the school. "Woah, head change."

In his brain, the nicotine seemed to attach to certain nerves, and with the next few heartbeats, new substances started to arrive through the bloodstream and absorb into Carlos's brain.

"What are those other chemicals, Ms. Frizzle?" Phoebe asked, pointing.

"Is one of those adrenaline?" Keesha wondered aloud.

Ms. Frizzle giggled her approval. "Yes!"

"Where did it come from?" Arnold asked.

"According to my research, adrenaline is mostly produced by the adrenal gland," Dorothy Ann informed him.

"What's this other one?" Wanda waved her arm through the second substance, and suddenly a huge grin plastered itself across her face. "Oh, man…"

"That's dopamine, Wanda. The neurotransmitter that causes what we call a 'high.' Give it a try, class." Ms. Frizzle wandered into a stream of the chemical and smiled dreamily. "Waaa-hoo!"

Tim was the first to dive in. "Oh, wow. This is great!"

"Is this what Carlos feels every time he smokes?" Keesha wondered.

Ralphie, twirling in dizzy circles, replied, "It's only this strong the first few times you smoke, but yeah…"

"So you have to smoke more and more each time to get this high?" Even Dorothy Ann couldn't deny the appeal of the dopamine.

"Exactly! And when his dopamine levels return to normal, Carlos's brain will crave that high again. That's what makes cigarettes so addicting."

"You can hardly blame Carlos for wanting to get this kind of a buzz," Tim commented.

"We call it a 'head change' with cigarettes."

"Right you are, Ralphie," said Ms. Frizzle. "But it's time we headed back now. To the bus, everyone!"

"Do we have to? This is really fun!" Wanda chased down one more stream of dopamine and absorbed it with a shudder of delight.

"Come on, Wanda." Arnold took her hand and pulled her back towards the bus. Another hit of dopamine hit him on the way and his grip tightened on her hand as he tried to fight off the buzz that overtook both of them. Once the thrill had passed, Arnold continued to drag her behind him, up the stairs and into the bus.

Eventually everyone got their seatbelts fastened, and the doors closed.

Ms. Frizzle threw the bus in drive and headed into a vein, then through the heart and back to the lungs. As they made their way back through the mazes of alveoli, Dorothy Ann put a hand to her head and groaned.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I want a cigarette."

"Just one dose of that dopamine is enough to get someone addicted, isn't it?" Tim asked.

"Right you are, Tim. There's enough nicotine in one tenth of a cigarette to form an addiction."

"So are we all going to be addicted to cigarettes now?" Phoebe asked.

"Of course not, Phoebe," Ms. Frizzle replied. "Human resolve is much stronger than a single cigarette."

"I tell you one thing," Keesha said. "I'm sure not going to be as hard on Carlos anymore."

"You're right," Dorothy Ann replied. "Me neither."

Finally, Carlos breathed out the last puff of smoke before putting out his cigarette, and the bus escaped with it. In a whirlwind, the bus returned to normal size, and the doors swung open. The kids piled out.

"Carlos!" Dorothy Ann rushed to him. "I'm sorry I said you stink."

The skater blushed. "Don't worry about it, D.A."

"We'll all support you and help you quit," Phoebe offered.

"Thanks, but I like smoking."

"Even though it's bad for you?" D.A. asked, looking concerned.

Carlos shrugged. "Yeah. Heck, I'm eighteen. I have no concept of my own mortality. I'll quit when I want to."

The class exchanged glances, and shrugged. He was right, of course.

Dorothy Ann was thinking hard. "Maybe there are other ways to get dopamine into your brain that doesn't involve nicotine?"

"Oh, there are lots of things that release dopamine into the brain," Ms. Frizzle replied. "Foods like chocolate and coffee, healthy amounts of exercise, even sex will stimulate dopamine production." She winked at D.A., who looked at Carlos, and both teens turned beet red.

"Maybe she can help him quit by boosting his dopamine production," Ralphie muttered to Tim under his breath.

Dorothy Ann heard him and indignantly took a breath to protest, but Carlos subtly slipped his hand into hers, and she froze. Her face reddened again and she just giggled.

"If you ask me, I'd say they're both pretty dopey-mine," Arnold joked.

"Arnold!" the class groaned, then they all broke into laughter.

All around the world, telephones were ringing.

"Is this the Magic School Bus?"

A tall man hurried into an office and picked up the ringing phone. "Hello, Magic School Bus, producer speaking."

"Hi," said the voice on the other end. "I just saw your show on cigarettes, and I've gotta say, that kind of material is not suitable for kids."

"That's why the kids aren't kids anymore. They're teens. Almost all of them are over eighteen, and Carlos buys his own cigarettes." The producer pulled a bottle of Febreeze out of a file cabinet. "Besides, there's no safer place for them to learn about being an adult and how life works than with Ms. Frizzle."

"I guess that's true. But seriously, is it really that easy to get addicted to cigarettes?"

"Absolutely." Stepping out of the school, the producer took his Febreeze out to the bus, and started spraying down the upholstery. "Any drug that releases dopamine, like tobacco or MDMA, are highly addictive. Just experimenting with them can cause addiction. Thanks for calling."

As he continued to clean the smell of tobacco smoke out of the bus, the phone rang again. "Hello, Magic School Bus, producer speaking."

"My grandpa told me that some people are more prone to smoking than other people."

"Your grandpa is right. Certain people don't produce as much dopamine on their own, so drugs have a stronger effect, and the kind of people who are typically called risk-takers have extra dopamine receptors in their brains."

"How do I know if I'm prone to addiction?" the caller asked.

"Well the best thing is to not get addicted to anything," joked the producer, going back inside. "But if you do form an addiction, get help. Quitting is tough, but it is possible, no matter how addicted you are. Thanks for calling."

Before he even put the phone down, there was another call and he answered once again. "Magic School Bus, producer." He put the Febreeze away and turned to the lizard that had just crawled through the door.

"Did Carlos and D.A. really hook up after that smoking show?"

Both the producer and Liz grinned and blushed. "Well, I don't know if they would like me to share that; I think you'll just have to keep watching to see if anything comes of it."

The voice on the other end chuckled. "I get it, I get it. I'll tune in next week."

"You do that. Thanks for calling." The producer hung up the phone and let out a breath. "What do you think, Liz? Wanna go have a smoke break?"

The lizard made a disgusted face at him, and the producer laughed.

"Good call. Let's do our lungs a favor and not smoke."

Liz nodded happily.


	3. The Magic School Bus Dolphin Dives

**The Magic School Bus Dolphin Dives**

"Come on, D.A., I didn't mean we had to— "

"Just forget it, Carlos!" The brainy blonde stormed into class and plopped down in her seat, scowling straight forward and intentionally ignoring the flustered teen trying to get her attention. Finally, with a sigh, Carlos gave up and trudged to his desk next to Ralphie.

His best friend leaned over and asked in a whisper, "What's up with Dorothy Ann?"

Carlos groaned and dropped his head onto his desk. "Remember the comment Ms. Frizzle made about us? Well I tried to ask her about it and she freaked out. She took everything the wrong way and now she thinks I'm a tool."

Ralphie glanced up at D.A., who was obviously still furious. "I wish I could help you, but the only sure-fire method I know to get girls is…to be me!" The athlete cackled.

Carlos groaned. "Thanks a lot."

Suddenly, the door burst open, and Phoebe rushed in waving her iPhone. "Look, look at this you guys! This is great news!"

"What is it, Phoebe?" Everyone gathered around the brunette as she pointed to the screen of her phone in great excitement.

"The Walkerville Aquarium just released their dolphins back into the wild!"

Ralphie frowned. "How is that good news? The dolphins were my favorite part of the aquarium! Why did they just let them go?"

Phoebe looked at Ralphie as if he were the most insensitive man on the planet. "Because dolphins are too intelligent to be kept in captivity, that's why! It's unethical to keep them in tiny little tanks like that. They go stir-crazy."

"Stir-crazy?" Carlos repeated. "Like, they get bored?"

"Yes, Carlos, that's what stir-crazy means," Dorothy Ann grumbled under her breath. Carlos shot her a dirty look.

"Come on, Pheebs," Ralphie scoffed. "You expect me to believe that an overgrown fish gets bored living in an aquarium?"

"They do!" Phoebe put her hands on her slender hips. "And dolphins aren't fish. They're mammals, just like you and me."

"That's right, Phoebe!" announced Ms. Frizzle, sweeping into class wearing a dress covered in a swirling seascape, complete with dolphins playing in the waves. "Dolphins breathe air and nurse their young, just like all mammals, and they are one of the most intelligent creatures on the planet!"

Ralphie just shook his head. "They still just look like fish to me."

Ms. Frizzle laughed at Phoebe's outraged expression, and the dolphins in her dress jumped in and out of the rolling waves. "Maybe you just need to take a closer look, Ralphie."

"Does that mean…?" Wanda asked.

Arnold groaned. "Oh, no. I knew I should have stayed home today," he whined as the Friz pointed to the door.

"To the bus!"

"Yes!" Phoebe cheered and hurried out the door, followed by everyone else, except Arnold, who wanted to stay behind, and D.A., who intentionally lagged to avoid walking next to Carlos. She took Arnold by the wrist and guided him out of the school to the bus with the rest of the class.

The bus rolled down the road until there was no one looking, then transformed into a helicopter, and off they went to the ocean to find some dolphins.

Carlos groaned from the back row, looking at the back of Dorothy Ann's head two rows ahead of him. "I just wish there was some kind of manual for girls or something. You know?" He glanced over at Tim, who was busy sketching a picture of a pod of dolphins. Carlos sighed. "Never mind."

Tim finally looked up. "Hm? Did you say something, Carlos?"

"Nope."

From the front of the bus, Ms. Frizzle sighed in contentment. "You know, class, you can learn a lot about life by watching how other species interact."

"Ugh, what does that even mean?" Carlos muttered, staring at the window at the fast-approaching ocean.

"Ms. Frizzle, do you have to land so…quickly?" Ralphie asked as the bus hit the water's surface, hard.

The bus bounced off the water and spun in the air. When it landed, it was a surfboard, and the nine people standing on it were clad in wetsuits and snorkels. Everyone's eyes darted around, admiring each other's figures in the skintight outfits, and Carlos caught D.A. staring at him just as she caught him staring at her.

"Were you just looking at my…?" Dorothy Ann gasped in realization and shoved Carlos off of the surfboard.

"D.A.!"

"This way, class!" called Ms. Frizzle as she dove gracefully into the water. The rest of the class followed suit, in their own particular fashion. Wanda did a cannonball, Ralphie belly-flopped, Keesha and Phoebe held hands as they jumped, and Arnold cautiously sat down on the surfboard and eased his way into the water.

Under the surface, Dorothy Ann was still yelling at Carlos. "You were looking at my ass! You were straight-up checking me out, you jerk!"

Carlos had both hands up in self-defense. "You wouldn't have known that if you hadn't been checking me out too!"

D.A. turned bright red and glared daggers at him. Swimming over to her, Wanda muttered, so Carlos couldn't hear, "Can't say I blame you." Her comment only served to make Dorothy Ann even more embarrassed.

Above them, there was a whirl, and a splash, and the bus joined them in the water, in the shape of a bottle-nosed dolphin, with Liz driving from inside.

"So, where are the dolphins, Ms. Frizzle?" Ralphie asked, looking around at the open water around them. "How do we find them?"

"Oh, don't worry about that, Ralphie," Ms. Frizzle said, swimming in carefree loops around her class. "It won't be long until they find us."

The dolphin-bus made a series of odd squeaking and clicking sounds when Liz honked the horn. Ms. Frizzle glanced over at Liz and winked knowingly.

"What was that noise the bus made?" Keesha asked, swimming over to her teacher.

"It sounded kind of like the sound we heard the bats making back in elementary school," Phoebe pointed out.

"Excellent observation, Phoebe! Dolphins use sonar to hunt, just like bats."

"You mean like echolocation?" Arnold clarified.

"Exactly! They also use sounds to communicate. In fact, each dolphin has a unique sound that they use like their names."

"That would mean that dolphins might actually have primitive language abilities!" Dorothy Ann realized excitedly.

"Is there any way for us to talk to the dolphins, Ms. Frizzle?" Phoebe asked.

It was the question that Ms. Frizzle had been waiting for. "That can be arranged," she said, and nodded at the bus. The dolphin-bus shot a beam out of the crest of its forehead, catching all of the students in it. There was a wave, a flash, and the teens found themselves in sleek, grayish bodies with large foreheads and narrow snouts.

"Wow!" squealed Wanda. "I can make sounds out of this swollen part on my forehead!"

"Your melon, Wanda," informed the Friz. "It's where your sonar equipment is."

"You mean this funny-shaped forehead has a porpoise?"

"CARLOS."

"Are we dolphins, Ms. Frizzle?" Tim asked.

"Bottle-nosed dolphins, to be precise, Tim. The most common and well-known species of dolphin. Ah, right on time!" The teacher-dolphin pointed with her snout to a small pod of similar dolphins approaching them.

The other dolphins came up and circled the little group of dolphin-students. One of them seemed to take a particular interest in Carlos, swimming all around him and finally coming up to look at him in the face. "Are you guys new around here?" it asked suddenly. 

The whole class gasped.

"At my old school," Phoebe whispered, "Dolphins never spoke English."

"But they're not speaking English, are they, Ms. Frizzle?"

"Of course not, Tim. We're dolphins. We're all speaking in dolphin now."

"We're a regular bunch of babel-fish!"

"Carlos!" the class groaned, and several of the real dolphins seemed to snicker.

By now the entire pod of actual dolphins were watching them with intense curiosity. Finally, Carlos turned back to the one that had addressed him originally and cautiously cleared his throat. "Uh, hi. Yeah, we're not really from here."

"Would you like us to show you around?" One of the other dolphins offered, swimming in playful circles around the little group.

"Yeah!" said the one talking to Carlos. "We can show you our fishing grounds, and where we hang out, and hey, maybe we'll even introduce you to some ladies."

"Ladies?" Ralphie repeated, suddenly interested.

The head dolphin grinned. "Oh, yeah. There's a pod of females that lives around here."

"What's a pod?" Wanda asked.

"A pod is what you call a group of dolphins," Phoebe answered her.

"Lead the way!" Carlos cried.

"Awesome!" the head dolphin squeaked. "I'm Chip. What's your name?"

"I'm Carlos. That's Ralphie, Dorothy Ann, Keesha, Wanda, Arnold, Tim, Phoebe, and that one is our teacher, Ms. Frizzle."

Chip looked confused for a minute. "Your pod is male and female? Weird."

"Why is that weird?" Tim asked, trying to get acquainted with some of the other real dolphins.

"Normally it's one or the other. Like," Chip motioned to his pod, "We're all dudes. That other pod I told you about, they're all female."

"Why?" asked Ralphie.

One of the other dolphins rolled onto his back for a second, a motion that looked kind of like an aquatic shrug. "They think we play too rough. Plus they've got babies, and babies are no fun. Come on, let's grab a bite to eat."

The real dolphins dove toward the sandy seabed. The class followed, watching the pod as they scanned what looked to them like a flat plane of sand, totally devoid of fish. Then suddenly, one of the dolphins stuck its nose into the sand and yanked out a flounder, seemingly out of nowhere.

"How did he do that?" Ralphie wondered.

"Are they using their sonar to find fish in the sand?" D.A. asked.

"Dynamic deduction, D.A.!" The Frizzle-dolphin did a backflip in the water. "Dolphins use echolocation to find food they can't see! Dig in, class!"

Chip nudged Carlos. "Over here, I'll show you." The two of them skimmed the bottom, and Carlos tried his hardest to imitate the methods that Chip was using, but to little effect. The others weren't having any better luck, although the real dolphins seemed to have no problem locating and catching the bottom-dwelling fish.

"This is hard!" Wanda commented finally.

"That's what she said!" cried Chip and Carlos at the same time. They grinned at each other and high-finned. Both the pod of student-dolphins and the pod of real dolphins groaned in unison.

"Does he do that all the time?" one of the real dolphins whispered to Arnold, who nodded.

"All the time."

Dorothy Ann was still focused on fishing with her sonar, and after a lot of trial and error, she started to hone in her new abilities. Finally, her efforts were rewarded and she pulled a tasty-looking fish out of the sand.

"Hey guys, D.A. caught a fish!" Wanda swam over to her. Everyone else hurried over to see her triumph.

"Way to go, D.A.!"

"Thanks Arnold!"

Carlos and Chip came over, but before Carlos could even open his mouth to congratulate his classmate, she had turned away and taken her prize with her. Chip looked at Carlos curiously as his new buddy sighed and hung his head.

"What's wrong, Carlos?"

"I wish she would at least let me talk to her," he replied sadly.

Chip looked back and forth between Carlos and Dorothy Ann. "And she won't give you the time of day, huh? Well, tell you what. I'll be your fin man. I'll show you how to impress her the way we do it in our pod. Hang on, what's that?"

All the dolphins looked up. They could hear something in the water nearby, more squeaks and clicks. Another pod of dolphins.

"It's the females!" one of the real dolphins cried. "Come on!"

The whole pod hurried toward the sound of the female dolphins, with the student-dolphins close behind. Before they had gotten too close, however, three of the females came out to meet them, and they weren't smiling.

"Hellooo," Chip said smoothly, gliding through the water toward the women.

"There's a baby in the pod. Go away," one of the females barked at him.

"Oh, come on, a baby won't get in the way—ow!" Chip had gotten too close, and the female snapped at his dorsal fin.

"I said, get back."

"Okay, okay, sheesh. You don't have to start a fight over it." Chip turned around and swam dejectedly back to the waiting pod. "I guess they're not in the mood right now."

"They're not the only ones giving the cold shoulder right now," Carlos muttered when he caught Dorothy Ann watching him again, only to have her turn her head when she saw him looking.

"No worries, no worries," Chip said confidently as they retreated from the angry females. "They're just being hard to get. But we have methods of dealing with that." The dolphin winked at Carlos. "Come on, everybody!"

The whole class followed the real dolphins to a coral reef nearby. Chip knew exactly where he was taking them, and the other dolphins seemed to know where it was, too. "Here we go." Chip swam up to a piece of brain coral, and started to rub against it. "Ahh." The other dolphins found similar pieces of coral, all of which looked as though they had been worn down by use.

"What are they doing?" Ralphie asked.

"It cleans your skin," Chip explained. "Plus it feels awesome. Come have a scratch." He floated up so the class could try the coral. When Wanda tired of waiting her turn and started to scratch against some other type of coral, one of the dolphins whistled to her in warning. "Don't use that one! It's too sharp. Use one of these." And he moved over to give Wanda a space at his coral grooming station.

"This'll have you looking your best in no time," Chip told Carlos.

Carlos looked down at his now perfectly groomed dolphin body, but still seemed unconvinced. "I don't know. She's been really mad at me." He glanced over to where Dorothy Ann was happily cleaning her skin against the coral.

Chip nodded knowingly. "I gotcha. Don't worry, there's one thing you can do that absolutely never fails."

"What's that?"

The dolphin looked around for a moment, spotted a piece of seaweed floating by, and grabbed it. "You need one of these," Chip said, letting go of the bunch of green and catching it against his dorsal fin. "Find a really nice one. I'll help you look, come on." And the two of them started off together to find the perfect seaweed gift for Dorothy Ann.

The other real dolphins were starting to find gifts for their would-be mates, too. Some of them were showing off to the class, passing their seaweed back and forth between them, or dragging it through the water with their tails. "The females love it if you have good moves," one of them explained.

"Do you wanna try?" One of the dolphins offered a small bit of kelp to Arnold, whose gray dolphin skin managed to turn pink as he haltingly declined.

Ralphie, however, always ready to show off, found his own sea grass to play with. "This is kinda fun," he said, as he passed his treasure from his mouth to his dorsal fin, then to his tail and back up to his mouth. "Am I doing it right?"

"You look great, Ralphie!"

"Yeah, for an 'overgrown fish'!" Keesha quoted.

Ralphie glided over to Keesha and trailed his sea grass across her back with his tail. "Oh, yeah? Don't pretend you're not impressed with my mad skills."

"Impressed?" Keesha scoffed to cover the shiver that ran down her back. "You're dragging some seaweed through the water. What's so impressive about that?"

"Don't you think it shows off my sleek, muscular body?" Ralphie asked in an overly seductive tone. Keesha faked a gag.

Carlos and Chip had found the perfect piece of seaweed and brought it back to the group. "Now that we're clean and we've all got gifts, let's go see if those females are a little nicer to us this time."

As they swam to find the pod of females, Carlos practiced with his seaweed, keeping an eye on Dorothy Ann. She glanced at him several times, but said nothing.

The females hadn't gone far, and as they approached, the three guard-dolphins that had stopped the group before were once again waiting for them, but they didn't yell at them like they had the first time.

Chip swam out with his gift, showing it off in the water and catching it with his tail. One of the females slowly started to approach him. When Chip saw her, he swam a little way off and dropped the seaweed, letting it sink towards the seabed. The female hurried forward and caught the gift. She danced around with it for a while, and the two of them swam off together.

Carlos took a deep breath and swam up to Dorothy Ann. "Hey, D.A., I uh, I got this for you." He presented the seaweed he had found, doing the moves Chip had showed him, showing off his gift for D.A., who for once had not glared at him or looked away. She watched him keenly.

Then, with a flick of his tail, Carlos swam away from the group and let go of his seaweed. He watched Dorothy Ann with butterflies in his stomach, waiting to see if she would accept his gift. To his surprise and delight, she hesitated only a moment before diving for it and snatching the seaweed in her mouth. She twirled happily, letting the green strands slide down her body from her dorsal fin to her tail.

"It's beautiful, Carlos," she said. He grinned in relief. D.A. nuzzled her snout against him, and he nuzzled back.

"Well class," said the Frizzle-dolphin. "I think it's about time for us to be swimming back to school."

"Aww." Everyone reluctantly said their goodbyes, then gathered around the bus. In a sparkle of magic, they were on board a pontoon plane sitting on the water's surface. Before they took off, Chip leapt over the surface of the water. Carlos waved as his new friend disappeared back below the surface.

"I guess you were right, Pheebs," Ralphie said as they took off and headed back to school. "Dolphins are really smart."

"Exactly!" Wanda piped up from the row behind them. "They hunt fish using sonar."

"And they groom themselves on coral," Tim added.

"And they can even give you dating advice!" Phoebe joked.

Ralphie laughed. "Yeah! I mean, it worked for Carlos." Everyone glanced to the back seat, where Carlos and Dorothy Ann were shamelessly making out.

"As I always say," Ms. Frizzle said, "Waa-a-ha-hoo!" 

All over the world, phones were ringing.

"Is this the Magic School Bus?"

The producer dragged a rack of wetsuits into the office and hit the speakerphone. "Hello?"

"Hi, is this the Magic School Bus?"

"Sure is, you're talking to the producer."

"Well, I just saw your dolphin show, and I had a few questions."

"Okay, go fish."

"Do all dolphins hunt using sonar?"

The producer started to take the wetsuits down one by one and fold them. "No. While all dolphins have sonar, not all of them use it to find their food. In fact, most pods of dolphins have specific hunting strategies that are based off of where they live. Orca pods will actually specialize in catching just one kind of food in one particular way, so that there can be a fish-eating orca pod and a seal-eating orca pod in the same basic area, but they never interact because they're not competing for food."

"Wow! I didn't know orcas were related to dolphins!"

"Orcas are the largest dolphins in the world. There are 36 different species of dolphin, that live in both fresh and salt water."

"That's amazing!"

"It is, isn't it? Thanks for calling." Liz scurried over and clicked the button when the phone started to ring again, then she jumped into one of the wetsuits that was still hanging up, and promptly got stuck in a leg.

"Hello, Magic School Bus."

"Hi. I just saw your show on dolphins, and you left out some very crucial points of dolphin behavior!"

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that none of the dolphins took a breath in the entire span of your show? Dolphins breathe air, which they have to get from the surface. An adult dolphin can hold its breath for up to seven minutes, but that's nowhere near as long as the kids were underwater without breathing."

The producer looked sheepish. "You're right, we didn't include the breathing, simply for the reason that it would be too redundant. We had a lot of material to cover."

"Then how could you leave out the most essential part of dolphin activity?"

"What part is that?" The producer noticed that Liz was stuck and started to try to get her free.

"Playing. Dolphins are one of few animals in the world that spend most of their time entertaining themselves. No aquatic creature plays as much as dolphins do. They even pass around poisonous puffer fish with their mouths to get high."

"We know that, but we wanted to highlight their hunting methods and their courtship behaviors, and we only had thirty minutes, what could we do?"

"I guess you're right. Well, I gotta get back to the pod now! Bye!" There was a click on the line that said the caller had hung up.

He finally got Liz out of the wetsuit, they exchanged a look, and laughed.


End file.
